Help! HDD Partitioning Inside Vista x64

My issue is that I cannot make a large enough partition from inside
Vista x64.

I have two 1TB HDDs in mirroring, and there's only 1 primary partition
right now that spans across the entire 1TB. 350GB of the 1TB are
occupied by the OS and documents / files.

My objective is to split this 1TB into two partitions for dual boot
with Win7 RC. And for that I need a 2nd primary partition on this drive
(at least 20GB or so).

I first tried the standard way of creating a new partition. From Disk
Management, I right clicked on the C drive and Shrink Volume. Then, it
says I can only shrink by 1GB!!! Since I cannot be repeating that 20 or
more times, I unsuccessfully gave diskpart.exe a shot.

Can anybody help me with this?

On the Shrink C disk from Disk Management, it sasy:

Size of available shrink space can be restricted if snapshots or
pagefiles are enabled on the volume.

Could this be the reason? And if so, how can I turn them off?

Thank you!


--
NYCGirl

Go to Computer | Properties | Advanced System Settings | System
rotection - turn off System Restore. Then reboot. Now run a manual defrag
on the drive you want to shrink. Then try the shrink process again.

If still no joy you will need to perform a boot time defrag that is offered
by some 3rd party defrag programs, such as PerfectDisk or DisKeeper.

I do all of my partition work by booting from a CD that contains Acronis
Disk Director Suite. By doing this I am not encumbered by any locked
files/folders because none are in use (the operating system is non in use at
that point).

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"NYCGirl" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> My issue is that I cannot make a large enough partition from inside
> Vista x64.
>
> I have two 1TB HDDs in mirroring, and there's only 1 primary partition
> right now that spans across the entire 1TB. 350GB of the 1TB are
> occupied by the OS and documents / files.
>
> My objective is to split this 1TB into two partitions for dual boot
> with Win7 RC. And for that I need a 2nd primary partition on this drive
> (at least 20GB or so).
>
> I first tried the standard way of creating a new partition. From Disk
> Management, I right clicked on the C drive and Shrink Volume. Then, it
> says I can only shrink by 1GB!!! Since I cannot be repeating that 20 or
> more times, I unsuccessfully gave diskpart.exe a shot.
>
> Can anybody help me with this?
>
> On the Shrink C disk from Disk Management, it sasy:
>
> Size of available shrink space can be restricted if snapshots or
> pagefiles are enabled on the volume.
>
> Could this be the reason? And if so, how can I turn them off?
>
> Thank you!
>
>
> --
> NYCGirl

Richard Urban;1038137 Wrote:
> Go to Computer | Properties | Advanced System Settings | System
> rotection - turn off System Restore. Then reboot. Now run a manual
> defrag
> on the drive you want to shrink. Then try the shrink process again.
>
> If still no joy you will need to perform a boot time defrag that is
> offered
> by some 3rd party defrag programs, such as PerfectDisk or DisKeeper.
>
> I do all of my partition work by booting from a CD that contains
> Acronis
> Disk Director Suite. By doing this I am not encumbered by any locked
> files/folders because none are in use (the operating system is non in
> use at
> that point).
>
> --
>
> Richard Urban
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows Desktop Experience
>
>
> "NYCGirl" <> wrote in message
> news:...> > >
> > >
> > > My issue is that I cannot make a large enough partition from inside
> > > Vista x64.
> > >
> > > I have two 1TB HDDs in mirroring, and there's only 1 primary
> > partition
> > > right now that spans across the entire 1TB. 350GB of the 1TB are
> > > occupied by the OS and documents / files.
> > >
> > > My objective is to split this 1TB into two partitions for dual boot
> > > with Win7 RC. And for that I need a 2nd primary partition on this
> > drive
> > > (at least 20GB or so).
> > >
> > > I first tried the standard way of creating a new partition. From Disk
> > > Management, I right clicked on the C drive and Shrink Volume. Then,
> > it
> > > says I can only shrink by 1GB!!! Since I cannot be repeating that 20
> > or
> > > more times, I unsuccessfully gave diskpart.exe a shot.
> > >
> > > Can anybody help me with this?
> > >
> > > On the Shrink C disk from Disk Management, it sasy:
> > >
> > > Size of available shrink space can be restricted if snapshots or
> > > pagefiles are enabled on the volume.
> > >
> > > Could this be the reason? And if so, how can I turn them off?
> > >
> > > Thank you!
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > NYCGirl > >

Thank you for your reply. I suspect that I may well have to do the
special defrag. I turned off System Restore, Pagefile etc. but I cannot
still shrink enough.

I read about Acronis Disk Director Suite, however, I hardly have to
make partitions, so, it's probably not smart for me to invest 50 dollars
on the soft..

I will try PerfectDisk or DisKeeper to move the MBR etc. Thank you for
the suggestions!


--
NYCGirl

"NYCGirl" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> Richard Urban;1038137 Wrote:
>> Go to Computer | Properties | Advanced System Settings | System
>> rotection - turn off System Restore. Then reboot. Now run a manual
>> defrag
>> on the drive you want to shrink. Then try the shrink process again.
>>
>> If still no joy you will need to perform a boot time defrag that is
>> offered
>> by some 3rd party defrag programs, such as PerfectDisk or DisKeeper.
>>
>> I do all of my partition work by booting from a CD that contains
>> Acronis
>> Disk Director Suite. By doing this I am not encumbered by any locked
>> files/folders because none are in use (the operating system is non in
>> use at
>> that point).
>>
>> --
>>
>> Richard Urban
>> Microsoft MVP
>> Windows Desktop Experience
>>
>>
>> "NYCGirl" <> wrote in message
>> news:...> > >
>> > >
>> > > My issue is that I cannot make a large enough partition from inside
>> > > Vista x64.
>> > >
>> > > I have two 1TB HDDs in mirroring, and there's only 1 primary
>> > partition
>> > > right now that spans across the entire 1TB. 350GB of the 1TB are
>> > > occupied by the OS and documents / files.
>> > >
>> > > My objective is to split this 1TB into two partitions for dual boot
>> > > with Win7 RC. And for that I need a 2nd primary partition on this
>> > drive
>> > > (at least 20GB or so).
>> > >
>> > > I first tried the standard way of creating a new partition. From Disk
>> > > Management, I right clicked on the C drive and Shrink Volume. Then,
>> > it
>> > > says I can only shrink by 1GB!!! Since I cannot be repeating that 20
>> > or
>> > > more times, I unsuccessfully gave diskpart.exe a shot.
>> > >
>> > > Can anybody help me with this?
>> > >
>> > > On the Shrink C disk from Disk Management, it sasy:
>> > >
>> > > Size of available shrink space can be restricted if snapshots or
>> > > pagefiles are enabled on the volume.
>> > >
>> > > Could this be the reason? And if so, how can I turn them off?
>> > >
>> > > Thank you!
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > NYCGirl > >
>
> Thank you for your reply. I suspect that I may well have to do the
> special defrag. I turned off System Restore, Pagefile etc. but I cannot
> still shrink enough.
>
> I read about Acronis Disk Director Suite, however, I hardly have to
> make partitions, so, it's probably not smart for me to invest 50 dollars
> on the soft..
>
> I will try PerfectDisk or DisKeeper to move the MBR etc. Thank you for
> the suggestions!
>
>
> --
> NYCGirl

Go here...
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Download the iso. Copy the image (iso) to cd. Boot from it. You are good
to go.
--

"Slap" <> wrote:

>Go here...
>http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
>
>Download the iso. Copy the image (iso) to cd. Boot from it. You are good
>to go.

No... don't "copy" it. Burn it with software that can handle an ISO
image and break it down into its components so that the result will be
a bootable install disc.

Manny Weisbord;1040468 Wrote:
>
>
> Try the freebie EASEUS:
>
> 'FREE EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition: Best Partition Manager
> freeware for Windows 2000/XP/Vista.'
> (http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm)

Slap;1040851 Wrote:[color=blue]
> > [/COLOR Wrote:
> > ]
> >
> > Go here...
> > '_http://gparted.sourceforge.net/_' (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/)
> >
> > Download the iso. Copy the image (iso) to cd. Boot from it. You are
> > good
> > to go.
> > --> >
>
> Hi!!! Thank you very much!! I ended up booting and making partitions
> from Vista disk over hte weekend as nothing else worked.. :huh:
>
> I did Perfect Disk's SMARTPlacement to move Boot files, but it was
> still not shrinkable. I had the option to defrag at boot, but when I
> set it to that option and rebooted, I got a message that the defrag
> could not be performed, I also got some letters like /f /d c:\ or
> whatever (I don't remember exactly what it was) which made no sense to
> me. So, I figure, if the software that people pay for couldn't do it,
> then there was no hope. And decided to reinstall Vista and make
> partitions.
>
> Thank you for all of your help! I learned a lot!!!


--
NYCGirl

"Ray Luca" <> wrote in message
news...
> "Slap" <> wrote:
>
>>Go here...
>>http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
>>
>>Download the iso. Copy the image (iso) to cd. Boot from it. You are
>>good
>>to go.
>
> No... don't "copy" it. Burn it with software that can handle an ISO
> image and break it down into its components so that the result will be
> a bootable install disc.

That's what Vista does. They call it 'copy image to cd' from the right
mouse button drop down menu. If she has XP she needs a third party iso
maker. In vista 'copy' to CD will do just that and she will end up with a
'iso' file which of course will not boot.

--

Slap;1041109 Wrote:
> "Ray Luca" <rayluca@xxxxxx> wrote in message
> newsl7f05te854a25equu72nnf9plveobv8i5@xxxxxx> > >
> > > "Slap" <slap@xxxxxx> wrote:
> > >> > > > >
> > > >>Go here...
> > > >>'GParted -- Welcome' (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/)
> > > >>
> > > >>Download the iso. Copy the image (iso) to cd. Boot from it. You are
> > > >>good
> > > >>to go.> > > >
> > >
> > > No... don't "copy" it. Burn it with software that can handle an
> > ISO
> > > image and break it down into its components so that the result
> > will be
> > > a bootable install disc. > >
>
> That's what Vista does. They call it 'copy image to cd' from the
> right
> mouse button drop down menu. If she has XP she needs a third party
> iso
> maker. In vista 'copy' to CD will do just that and she will end up
> with a
> 'iso' file which of course will not boot.
>
> --

yeah I know what you are saying, I have Roxio Creator 2009, and I have
to choose Make a disk from an image or something like that. That's how
I made my Win 7 installation disks and other bootable disks. You don't
make a copy of an ISO image and put it on a disk as it is.


--
NYCGirl

Hey I bookedmarked EASEUS Partition Master (the free version supposedly
only works on 32-bit Vista and mine's 64 bit) but downloaded Gparted's
latest version.

As far as I can tell, it's NOT an ISO file. I could use WinRAR which
unpacks compressed files including zip files. So I just seed it on my C
drive, and I can run it like that?

Though I already made necessary partitions, I would like to learn how
to use it so that I can use it when I change my mind again and change
the current partitions, lol.


--
NYCGirl

"NYCGirl" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> My issue is that I cannot make a large enough partition from inside
> Vista x64.
>
> I have two 1TB HDDs in mirroring, and there's only 1 primary partition
> right now that spans across the entire 1TB. 350GB of the 1TB are
> occupied by the OS and documents / files.
>
> My objective is to split this 1TB into two partitions for dual boot
> with Win7 RC. And for that I need a 2nd primary partition on this drive
> (at least 20GB or so).
>
> I first tried the standard way of creating a new partition. From Disk
> Management, I right clicked on the C drive and Shrink Volume. Then, it
> says I can only shrink by 1GB!!! Since I cannot be repeating that 20 or
> more times, I unsuccessfully gave diskpart.exe a shot.
>
> Can anybody help me with this?
>
> On the Shrink C disk from Disk Management, it sasy:
>
> Size of available shrink space can be restricted if snapshots or
> pagefiles are enabled on the volume.
>
> Could this be the reason? And if so, how can I turn them off?
>
> Thank you!
>
>
> --
> NYCGirl

I think you have to disable mirroring before you resize, but I don't use
this config so I can't be sure.